How do you deal with all the shortcomings of the game ?

[Guest]

  On 5/8/2016 at 9:43 AM, 5thHorseman said:

Oh wait there are none.

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I really hope someone takes the idea of KSP and makes a game that takes itself seriously.  It probably wouldn't sell nearly as well though, so it'd have to be a labor of love.

[Adoelrome]

  On 5/8/2016 at 3:41 PM, regex said:

I really hope someone takes the idea of KSP and makes a game that takes itself seriously.  It probably wouldn't sell nearly as well though, so it'd have to be a labor of love.

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Orbiter, no?

[Guest]

  On 5/8/2016 at 3:47 PM, Adoelrome said:

Orbiter, no?

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Orbiter has no VAB/SPH or career mode so it's not really doing anything that KSP is doing.

Edited May 8, 2016 by regex

[ruiluth]

Regarding aerobraking, I think it's worth noting that real life space programs rarely use aerocapture specifically because of the problems you mentioned. Since I started a new career in 1.1 I haven't aerocaptured at all, but done regular capture burns with extra fuel. I actually find this to be much more realistic and enjoyable. As for the other things, well... I just use tons of mods and pretend a lot

[Carraux]

They have done a lot for shuttles lately. Except adding anything which comes close to a heatschield mechanism of any kind. Huh?

Edited May 9, 2016 by Carraux

[Plusck]

  On 5/6/2016 at 10:21 PM, NikkyD said:

1) It was a MESS to build a vehicle that can be unloaded and loaded...

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Kindly point to any RL example where a rover has been loaded back onto a ship for return to Earth.

Or any semi-realistic SF that does this without essentially copying and "spacing-up" a C130-style military transport plane.

  On 5/6/2016 at 10:21 PM, NikkyD said:

2) Reentry... how do you build a ship that has a somewhat aerodynamic nose, and engine pointing in the oposite direction AND a heatshield...

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You don't. RL or Sci-Fi, it isn't an option.

Or you put a decoupler on your nose with a heatshield underneath it. Or you make a re-entry-capable plane.

  On 5/6/2016 at 10:21 PM, NikkyD said:

3) So to plan a mission i have to look at community budget maps...

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Or you work it out for yourself.

  On 5/6/2016 at 10:21 PM, NikkyD said:

You can't even plot a course at a future time to see how many steps and dV would be required....

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Yes you can. However, every step depends massively on each prior step, so you can only really know when you do it.

  On 5/6/2016 at 10:21 PM, NikkyD said:

How much dV can i aero off at duna with my design ? ...

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What's the weather going to be like next month?

  On 5/6/2016 at 10:21 PM, NikkyD said:

4) have you ever looked closely at the weight of the stock components ? ....

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The components are the size they are. The smallest wheels can be used to build a bus. They aren't intended to be tiny. If you don't like them, edit them.

  On 5/6/2016 at 10:21 PM, NikkyD said:

5) Cockpits. Now with the system of 3 professions it is somewhat obvious that a lot of players will want to bring 3 kerbals with them...

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A lot of players will also realise that a 3-man crew is a luxury. 2-man plus flight computer is much more reasonable.

Personally I hate the car industry as a whole because they don't make high performance 3-seater sports cars.

[NikkyD]

Imagine a heatshield with a clamshell opening and an engine inside. During ascent it would be open and be some sort of "skirt" around the engine, no aero trouble. And when it comes to landing you close it and have the engine shielded. This way you could enter engine first.

[KSK]

  On 5/9/2016 at 11:03 AM, Plusck said:

A lot of players will also realise that a 3-man crew is a luxury. 2-man plus flight computer is much more reasonable.

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So how come we get the luxury option rather than your self-proclaimed reasonable one?

 

[DChurchill]

  On 5/8/2016 at 3:41 PM, regex said:

I really hope someone takes the idea of KSP and makes a game that takes itself seriously.  It probably wouldn't sell nearly as well though, so it'd have to be a labor of love.

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Not sure what you mean by "takes itself serously". You mean the whole idea of Kerbals?

I think that the whole "construction set" combined with the fact that it's extremely moddable is why it's the success that it is. And is in essence, the answer to the OP's question. Don't like the way something works? Get a mod. You can play this game any way that you want. Look at the Skyrim mod community and the fact that it's still going strong, what, 5?? year later. Hell, I played Skyrim last night, after I sent a rover to the Mun. I have somewhere near 2,000 hours in that game. I wouldn't have if not for the mods.

Edited May 9, 2016 by DChurchill

[Guest]

  On 5/9/2016 at 7:28 PM, DChurchill said:

Not sure what you mean by "takes itself serously". You mean the whole idea of Kerbals?

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No, there's just certain elements of the advertising and portrayal of Kerbals that I find distasteful, and have for a very long time.

I'm actually quite happy with the state of the game at this point, just wish they'd stop with the "Jackass"-style advertising.

  Just now, DChurchill said:

I think that the whole "construction set" combined with the fact that it's extremely moddable is why it's the success that it is. You can play this game any way that you want. Look at the Skyrim mod community and the fact that it's still going strong, what, 5?? year later. Hell, I played Skyrim last night, after I sent a rover to the Mun.

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Totally.  Frostfall and a few other mods really energized the game again for me.  Still playing Minecraft too, that's been kept fresh by mods and updates for quite some time.  I think KSP will have an active fan base for a very long time as well.

[Plusck]

  On 5/9/2016 at 6:13 PM, KSK said:

So how come we get the luxury option rather than your self-proclaimed reasonable one?

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We get a space shuttle cockpit too. Doesn't mean that we should put that on a lander. What's your point?

[DChurchill]

  On 5/9/2016 at 7:33 PM, regex said:

No, there's just certain elements of the advertising and portrayal of Kerbals that I find distasteful, and have for a very long time.

I'm actually quite happy with the state of the game at this point, just wish they'd stop with the "Jackass"-style advertising.

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That's what I meant. I just didn't articulate it very well. I agree with that, but maybe not to the same degree. I don't play to the incompetent Kerbal trope. I just ignore that whole thing.

[KSK]

  On 5/9/2016 at 7:56 PM, Plusck said:

We get a space shuttle cockpit too. Doesn't mean that we should put that on a lander. What's your point?

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Post deleted. I see your point but still consider that you post was an overly aggressive response to a reasonable point raised by the OP.

Edited May 9, 2016 by KSK

[DChurchill]

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/codswallop

[Plusck]

  On 5/9/2016 at 8:41 PM, KSK said:

Post deleted. I see your point but still consider that you post was an overly aggressive response to a reasonable point raised by the OP.

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Fair enough.

To NikkyD: not intended to be aggressive. Just intended to be a bit abrupt since I tire of gripe threads (and particularly gripe threads that shout "gripe" in their thread title). I think the one thing that could be an addition to the game (but, I suspect, will be a nightmare to code for, balance, attach proper joint strength to and so on) is hinges. There are no hinges that allow things to be attached in the stock game. That would solve a couple of those shortcomings.

For many of the other points, though, you're asking for either the impossible or for the stock game to have a terribly cluttered UI where all the things that mods add are somehow made available to all yet not overwhelming for a beginner.

Edited May 9, 2016 by Plusck

[monstah]

  On 5/9/2016 at 7:33 PM, regex said:

I'm actually quite happy with the state of the game at this point, just wish they'd stop with the "Jackass"-style advertising.

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Dude, the video (0.22? 1.0? Can't remember now) with the Columbia-like explosion and the "blame sandwich". Distasteful at best, IMO.  

[Guest]

  On 5/9/2016 at 9:17 PM, monstah said:

Dude, the video (0.22? 1.0? Can't remember now) with the Columbia-like explosion and the "blame sandwich". Distasteful at best, IMO.  

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Yeah.

At this point that's pretty much my only gripe about the game (that I'm actually serious about, at least).

[NikkyD]

@Plusck there are hinges... with mods ofc.

It has been mentioned over and over that i want to buy a product that is somewhat finished and not a LEGO set of parts with which i have to build my own game first and then i can build things inside it.

But look at mods like mechjeb, its been around since the earliest days of the grid and they NEVER implemented something like it into the full game even tho everyone seems to be using either MJ or the engineer tool or something in that neighborhood.

Gothic 3 was a desaster when it came out, the only thing that kept it alive was a community. The first thing everyone was installing along with it was the community patch. Years later they want to make a buck out of it again and this time they included the community patch officially in the game. It's just not professional behaviour this attitude to let mods fill up the gaps that you leave open beause you are understaffed and underfunded. MineCraft was written by a single guy, many indie games are written by single guys, you know that before you start, i dont let that count as an excuse. If the game is successful, you hire more crew to finally patch it to near perfection. If it was some bottom dwelling niche game with 1k buyers and a 2 guy crew, it'd be understandable but that's not the case.

[Warzouz]

  On 5/7/2016 at 3:28 PM, NikkyD said:

Why NOT ? On a 10t lander, a 500 kg rover is nothing. The problem isn't the weight or space, its that THERE ARE NO PARTS to properly pull that off even though it would be so easy. As i have done it, 2.5 service bay and a rover that fits into it. Now make this stuff on purpose and not makeshift and it is absolutely no issue, but thats just it, there is no such part. And it's not just the reloading of the rover, its the landing itself. Putting a rover in a box is a standard requirement imho, but they dont have parts for it... there is just so much stuff missing, it's like they never even played it themselves or they would have realized within 1 hour what kind of stuff is missing.

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Here is my solution for rover deployment (they're pack them by 4, but you can deploy only 2). I haven't tested it in 1.1.2 yet.

As for you issue with the part balancing, we discussed it here

And here is the mod I created to implement it

 

[John FX]

  On 5/9/2016 at 11:03 AM, Plusck said:

Personally I hate the car industry as a whole because they don't make high performance 3-seater sports cars.

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Not wanting to disagree with the point of your post I think the McLaren F1 might like to disagree with your comment about no high performance 3 seater sports cars...

[NikkyD]

I don't want to derail my own thread to cars, but even a Nissan GTR has 2 backseats. They call it 2+2 and it is somewhat popular amongst supercars but nobody really wants to sit there. But the whole statement was taken out of context. The context is, that there are 3 professions in the game and it makes sense to take them with you on a trip. In addition because of the xp system you want as many kerbals as possible to place a flag on every body for max xp. You start career with 4 but the pilots are doubled. So taking the famous 3 along with you is kinda a nobrainer imho, but the 5 year old capsule parts dont feature that.

As a logical next step in the tech tree after a 1-man-capsule for first steps in space there should be a 3 or 4 man version, given the whole setup. Next step would then be a lander for 1 and a lander for 3. If you look at the visual model of the 2man lander can, you just have to ask yourself "why can't i fit 3 in there ?". And yes, it bugged me so much i simply made my own part, without inside view tho, which is a bit annoying but acceptable.

[Pax Kerbana]

You could always try again in 5 years, Squad will be mostly done with the basic game elements by then.

[DChurchill]

  On 5/10/2016 at 1:04 PM, NikkyD said:

I don't want to derail my own thread to cars, but even a Nissan GTR has 2 backseats. They call it 2+2 and it is somewhat popular amongst supercars but nobody really wants to sit there. But the whole statement was taken out of context. The context is, that there are 3 professions in the game and it makes sense to take them with you on a trip. In addition because of the xp system you want as many kerbals as possible to place a flag on every body for max xp. You start career with 4 but the pilots are doubled. So taking the famous 3 along with you is kinda a nobrainer imho, but the 5 year old capsule parts dont feature that.

As a logical next step in the tech tree after a 1-man-capsule for first steps in space there should be a 3 or 4 man version, given the whole setup. Next step would then be a lander for 1 and a lander for 3. If you look at the visual model of the 2man lander can, you just have to ask yourself "why can't i fit 3 in there ?". And yes, it bugged me so much i simply made my own part, without inside view tho, which is a bit annoying but acceptable.

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Here's the thing, Nikky, you're never going to get exactly the game that you want from any publisher. If it has everything that YOU want then there will be something about it that Plusk or Regex or I don't like about it. And that number goes up the more people buy the game. You can't please everybody 100% of the time.

[NikkyD]

As a software developer i am well aware of that. But i am talking about things that are not personal flavor but simple basic things. You have 1m, 2m and 3m engines and fuel tanks but only 1m boosters... why ? stuff like that

[FullMetalMachinist]

  On 5/10/2016 at 10:20 AM, NikkyD said:

It has been mentioned over and over that i want to buy a product that is somewhat finished and not a LEGO set of parts with which i have to build my own game first and then i can build things inside it.

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That's the thing, though. It has been mentioned over and over by the devs that a game with LEGO parts is what the game is supposed to be. 

So you want the game to be something it isn't, then call it out on it's "shortcomings" because it's not the game you want.